WHEN I was twenty-five years of age, I became convinced of the folly of worshipping the idols — of their inability to save or hurt me — that they were nothing more nor less than wood and stone and mud, the work of men’s fingers, and I gave them up forever. I had then nothing to worship. I had no God. I felt a heavy load upon my heart, and I wanted to worship a God that could take away this burden from my heart, but I knew of no such God. One day early, before daybreak, I was out in the field, and thinking of the load on my heart, and wishing to know how it could be removed, when I was arrested by the sudden appearance of the sun rising out of the eastern heavens like a beautiful ball of fire, and it lighted up the whole world with its great and glorious light. I said at once, “This is God,” and I fell down and worshipped the great sun as he arose in the east. I said to the sun, “Oh, sun, sun, I worship you! Save me, and take away the load from my heart! “I did the same in the evening, as he went down below the hills. I asked him to bless me before he departed, and to take away the load from my heart.
This I continued to do for two years or more. I worshipped the rising and the setting sun; but no help came to me from the sun — no voice of peace to my heart. The burden still remained on my heart. Then, one night, as the beautiful moon rose high in the heavens, lighting up the country round with her beautiful soft light, I turned my face to her and I said to the moon, “Oh, moon, I worship you! take away the burden from my heart!” I worshipped the moon for a long time, but no peace came. The burden still remained on my poor heart. I then betook me to the stars as they glittered in the sky, and I said, “Surely there is life in them.” I prayed to them, and asked them to take away the load from my heart, but no peace came; the load still remained on my heart. Then when all failed me — the idols, the sun and the moon and the stars — the load on my heart became heavier, and I threw myself on the ground in despair, and I cried and said, “Oh, if there be any one above the sun and moon and stars — if there be a Ruler above them all — reveal yourself to me, and take away this load from my heart!” But no voice came from the Ruler above; no help or comfort came to me from any source; and ‘I gave up all in despair, and the burden of my heart increased. To add to my afflictions, my eyesight left me, and I went on my way groping in the dark, but still longing for something or somebody that could take away the load from my heart, till that day on which I heard the noise of the crowd going to chapel, and I asked what it meant, and they told me; and I said, “I will go and hear him too.” I went, and, as I sat and listened to the preacher telling the people about the great God, the Ruler above, who made the sun and the moon and stars — that He loved the world, that He sent Jesus, and that He could save us and give us peace — I could restrain myself no longer, but leaped from my seat, and shouted, “That is it! That is it! That is what I have prayed for long ago! That is what I have all along been longing for! “And now tonight I am to be admitted into the Church of Jesus Christ. I have believed in Him. I love Him. He has saved me. He has taken away the load from my heart, and now I am ready to say, like old Simeon, “I am ready to die, for I have found my Saviour, and the load is taken off my heart.”